Doc and Sanchez
by ScientificHufflepuff
Summary: When a new subset of Rickless dimensions are discovered, the Council considers adding the likeliest resident genius inventor found there to their own ranks. Unfortunately for them, time travel and the multiverse make for a terrible combination, and there are a handful of Ricks out to prove it. Of course, that'll mean capturing a version of Dr Brown and his assistant Marty first...
1. Chapter 1

Every visit to the future was, in it's own way, ever so slightly different than the last. Sometimes, he's come and the world was bright, new, like something off an assembly line. Other times, it didn't seem quite so foreign at all, like nothing much had even really wanted to change, at least, in the surface, anyway. This was one of those trips, it seemed. There was... A unique lack of the usual sci-fi trappings here in this version of the 21st century. Granted, the cars and clothes had an uncanny peculiarity to them, but not because they flew or contained a great deal of electronic components. This would have worried the temporal traveler, long ago, but now? Well... Emmett Brown considered himself far more matured on the subject these past 12 years than he had ever been while he was trying to build the thing. It was something you could chalk up to experience, and having the free time to actually delve into the theory, rather than just trying to make the damn thing work in the first place. Changes weren't a sign of mistake, this far ahead, it was merely a symptom of existing, seen only by those who could go forward to check.

The changes, though, did find a way to present a problem to him in another sense. While this updated Hill Valley had its fair share of various tech and the retail it was distributed in, none of it was quite at the level he needed the technology to be. Oh, he'd picked up a few delightful curiosities. A cheap drive no bigger than his thumb that could hold whole _gigabytes_ was a surprising find, for one, and he looked forward to playing with it later, but it wasn't what he'd looking for in coming here. No, his shopping trips to the future tended to revolve around the types of things in the more obviously advanced futures. Holographic interfaces, powerful electromagnets in hover kits, and generators beyond what a person living in the 1980s could even dream of. If you could help it, you really did want more than one fusion reactor. You could work miracles with steam, he'd come to find while living in the past, but by _Newton_ some days it could be inconvenient. A stay-at-home inventor should try to be efficient where he can, after all.

"I'm sorry, a what?" Asked the clerk on the other end of the payphone which, curiously, had been a nightmare trying to locate. Next time, he noted, he ought to bring along one of those cell phones he's seen. There was no guarantee, though, it'd be compatible with the next trip in.

"I was asking about the availability of any small reactors in your store." Replied Emmett, calmly. He had a sense of the answer he'd get, given the other conversations he'd had today.

"What kind?" Came the hesitant reply, a bit bewildered as to what this baffled old man wanted.

"Fusion?" He clarified.

And, there it was. Pleasant laughter and then "No, I'm sorry, sir, we don't carry that here."

"Ah, of course. Thank you anyway." Emmett hung up with a sigh. Despite the natural course of changes, things usually didn't deviate quite so drastically as what he'd been seeing all day. Perhaps he would shoot a century further, next time... Either way, it was back to the train with what he had already found. He probably wanted to leave now anyway to make it back before it became much too late in the day. Another one of the things he missed about the late DeLorean was its inconspicuousness. Not compared to cars in general, naturally, it stood out on it's own right, but the train engine filled with retrograde technology was another level entirely. You just couldn't park it anywhere close by without too much attention. Cloaking technology, however, was a different trip to prepare for altogether. In the meantime, he'd just have to walk the half-hour to where he'd hidden it. He didn't especially mind it all that much, once he was on his way. It was good space to think, and he probably needed it anyway, you just had to keep an eye out.

Arriving at the train, he set his purchases down on the pavement to haul the door open. The Jules Verne time train was an elegant mechanical beast, if he did say so himself, backlit behind a low billboard, and just a little difficult to make out in the fading light. Perfect for the unseen traveler.

Door open, he gathered his things back up, and stopped to appreciate a light breeze before stepping into the darkened interior. Despite the windows, you couldn't see all that much, but for Emmett, he knew the interior like a second home, partly because that was what it was sometimes used for. He shed the jacket and glasses he'd been wearing onto the main console, and reached for the great electric switch to power the whole thing on.

It was then, that the figure who had been soundlessly waiting in the shadowed corners finally decided to pounce.

Emmett was pinned halfway under the console by someone light, but strong. The figure's hand was pressed over his mouth, as it looked around the inside of the train with a intensity, well, usually reserved for Emmett himself.

"Shh! Sh! Knock it off." Snapped the figure, smacking away the hand he had just tried to use to free himself. "I'm here to help y-... I said stop it! You ungrateful..." The figure, an older male it seemed from the voice, froze stock still, other than to look around for another couple seconds and keep him from moving either. Satisfied with whatever it was he was waiting or watching out for, he turned his attention back to Emmett, and gave a dramatic sigh. "I'll let you up in a second, just, just know that, that if you try anything, I'm gonna... You're gonna get your ass kicked. Got it?"

Emmett, up til this point, couldn't do much more than breathe, struggle, and try to see who exactly had broken into his time machine. It was hard to pick out any specific features, but he could get a basic shape from the outline. Wild, light hair, and some sort of long, light coat, as well as the overpowering scent of liqueur seemed to be key traits.

"Well?" Said the man. "You good with that? or am I gonna have to-..." He trailed off into stammering. It occurred to Emmett that this man must not be entirely lucid, and was most likely some sort of delinquent who'd found the inside of the train by happenstance. If he could just get up, he could probably be able to take him and then get him out without any issues, if he had to. It was only surprise that had put him on such a disadvantage in the first place. As clearly as he could, given his current situation, Emmett nodded his acquiescence.

His captor took a breath, and, after a carefully stern glare, removed his hands and moved off of the inventor. Doc sat up, rubbing at the back of his neck. "I don't have much of monetary value, if that's what-..."

He was cut off short by the man's laughter, a wild, harsh sound, even if he did seem to be trying to be more quiet about it. "Ahaha! Hah! First of all, I call BS on that. Look at this thing! It's got all kinds of valuable tech components all wrapped up in steampunky garbage. It's an entire, ergh, an entire steam train engine! You know what a guy could sell this thing for?" After pausing long enough to get a concerned look from his captive, he continued. "Second of all..." He stopped again, looking like he was trying to pull himself together. How intoxicated was he? "Second of all, I'm not here for that, you idiot. I'm here for you, _'Doc Brown'_ , or whatever it is they usually call you."

A million thoughts and possibilities raced through Emmett's mind. How much did this stranger know? And how? He usually tried to keep his identity as unremarkable as possible when outside his own time. He pushed himself to his feet, and then finally hit the power switch on the train.

His attacker, now illuminated, was not that much older than himself. His hair was a strange tint of grey, and his coat recognizably of the ilk worn in laboratories, not very unlike his own either. His eyebrows formed a single, connected line across his forehead, which was scrunching over a pair of bright and intense eyes, currently focused on something in his hands. It looked... Like a checkout scanner, but the man clearly regarded it with some importance. All at once, his arms shot up and he fired some type of energy ray from it, right past Emmett's shoulder. Doc whirled around with a yelp, expecting mild injury or damage to the console, but was instead faced with a swirling green vortex. What it was, nor what was behind it, he couldn't see. He certainly could tell there was a kind of depth to the swirling...substance... as though it stretched back much farther than the apparent plane on which it existed. He even leaned back behind it to check. The console was untouched, at any rate.

"My name is Rick Sanchez." Said the man, pocketing the ray-gun as Emmett turned back around to watch him. "And I'm only gonna explain everything once. If you're all you're cracked up to be, that's all you'll need anyway. Now come on." he said, grabbing Doc's wrist. "W-we gotta get you out of this dimension!"


	2. Chapter 2

Doc dragged his feet as he was pulled along. The man, Rick, wheeled around to glare at him.

"Look," he said "listen, we don't have the time to stand around-..."

"Time or no, I think I can have the short version. Why are you here? I take it you're from the future?"

Rick gave an exasperated huff. "Yeah, sure, whatever. Technically, yeah." He said. "Listen, there's probably gonna be a lot of people hot on our tail here in a couple minutes, so we've got to get out of here. I'll explain once we're moving. Aren't you supposed to do this kinda thing all the time?"

Emmett sighed. Yes, sort of, but only, he usually knew the person demanding his help. In the case of 1955, Marty wasn't in quite so much of a hurry. "Through there?" He asked, nodding at the portal.

"Yes!" Said Rick, then stuck his hand in and out of the swirling green, showing it to Doc. "It won't kill you. I used it to get here. Now come on!"

Emmett pulled his wrist free from the vise-like grip of Ricks free hand. Alright. He had this... Just had to brace for it... And then, just when Rick was about ready to push him through himself, he jumped forwards and through the portal.

He immediately, and rather harshly, fell as if the odd apparition had never been there at all, and directly onto the solid ground. Rick stepped easily through after him, pocketing his gun and fishing around for something else. "Yeah." He said, finding, it seemed, what he was after. "You don't actually have to like, run or jump or whatever to make it work." He took a drink from the flask he'd found, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. He grinned a little. "Everybody ever thinks it doesn't, even if I tell them, and they all land like you eveery-... Eeeeeevery single first time."

Emmett, meanwhile, had picked himself up off the dirt and began to take stock of his surroundings. It seemed like it ought to be nighttime. The sky was dark, and starry, for one, but the ground beneath was surprisingly bright, along with the other surroundings. It was as though there was a full moon out, but it seemed too bright for just the one... A second later, and he realized that this was because this was exactly true. Two moons, and another swirling purple planer on the horizon. He was so taken by the alien sky, that he almost didn't notice the grass and trees. Which were, on examination, rather sporelike. Wherever this was, it was much, much farther than he had ever been before. Granted, time and space were two enormously different subjects to compare, but despite the lack of commonality, he still felt it to be true. "Now is there time for an explanation?" He asked, turning to Rick. The man seemed much calmer, now, sipping his flask and leaning against the hood of a-... "Is that a flying saucer?" He asked, stepping forwards for a closer look.

"Yyyyyep. Said Rick, watching him scurry around the outside with a sort of amusement. " _Impressive skills of observation_. I built it myself. Now..." he hopped to his feet and inside of the ship's door, barely acknowledging Emmett's conflicted expression. On one hand, what a ship! On the other, built by a mere human. He supposed the strange ground he stood on was enough for him for now, but his curiosity had been flared by the events of the past few minutes. He followed Rick inside, taking a second to accumulate to how the doors worked. Inside, the sleep ship more closely resembled a battered old van. The seats were scuffed, with the occasional spring or piece of stuffing sticking out from them. The floor was a mulch of various trash, wrappers, bottles, cans, paper.. The console looked... Sticky, but the buttons and levers intrigued him. Rick made himself at home, calmly starting up some sort of sequence with it. "Okay, so." He said. "First of all, the multiverse?"

Emmett nodded.

"That's real. My portal gun can jump through space and dimensions. I also built it myself, and don't even thing about taking it apart. Got that?"

Another nod.

"Great." Said Rick, flatly. "About every other version of me in the multiverse has one too. We're Ricks, it's what we do. _Unlike_ me, they've all banded together into a kind of organization because we all hate the government, and you can see how that makes _perfect sense_."

"I assume your counterparts are the ones chasing us down? Chipped in Emmett.

"Tracked _you_ down. They know better to leave me alone for the most part."

"And what they want with me has to do with..." Doc caught himself. He assumed Rick know about the time machine, and there would be no other reason he could think of... Except, maybe, the plutonium still sitting in a box under his bed... What were portal guns powered from? Though, he had already mentioned the future... "My vehicle?"

"Time travel? Yep." The ship took off from the ground, hovered for just a moment, before shooting off into the upper part of the atmosphere, pressing the two old scientists back into their seats. "Ricks don't do time travel. It's nowt our thing. Doc Browns? That's basically your entire wheelhouse."

He took a moment to think and process all the new information, and the connotations held in it. He was also looking sidelong at Rick, slightly distracted by the fact that what was, quite possibly, a sur-lightspeed vehicle, was currently being piloted by someone whose faculties were, _very_ likely, currently impaired. Rick seemed... Mostly functional, he supposed, as well as as focused as someone in his state could be on the situation at hand. "So..." He began. "If there are an infinite multiverse of 'me's, why am I in trouble, in particular?"

"You're not." Said Rick. "You're just one of the ones they haven't got to yet. You all live all over the timeline except for basically all the 2010s, which, y'know, we _do_. Most of you, anyway. That's why we had to get out before they realized you'd shown up and I'd found out first."

"But why would they want more than one of me?"

"Because of bullshit. Ricks and Emmetts don't exist in the same dimensions. Got an universe with you in it? No me. One with me? No you. Because of that, the fact you invented possibly the most significant invention in your reality, and..." Rick gestured back and forth between himself and his passenger. "We kinda resemble each other, the council's trying to get you classified as a type of me. Which is idiotic, since we're not identical, and Ricks don't do time travel. Just like Emmetts don't do portal guns."

The stars whizzed past in a dizzying array of color. The ship skirted nebulae and planetary rings and what he could have sworn was a black hole. Emmett was well and truly stunned by the sight. He wished he'd had a camera of some kind... Clara would have loved to have seen this... Meanwhile, and the driver's wheel, Ricks seemed almost bored. He knew about the old proverb about familiarity and contempt, but how could someone ever tire of these kinds of sights?

"Try not to accidentally roll down the window." Warned Rick. "Finding you was a real pain. I don't wanna have to go bother to do it again, but I can. And don't smudge up the glass, jeez."

That sparked another question in Emmett. "If you're not on this council of yourselves, but don't 'do' time travel, you need me for...?"

"Sabotage!" Cackled Rick. "You and me are gonna stop this thing in it's tracks. I could probably do it myself, but your subset of dimensions were a new find. I basically have no idea who you are, aside from your name, where you live, what you do, and everything you've ever done. I gotta... You're research. Gotta shut it down, bruh!" He whooped again. "Listen, they probably haven't learned I took you if I did this right, they'll just be running around and assume you're not back yet or something happened, so we're gonna lie low at my place while I figure out a plan."

"And how long will that take?" Asked Emmett. He got the suspicion he might not be getting home for a while...

"I guess probably like a week or something. Alright, here we go, good old Earth." Emmett looked back out the window. A familiar blue sphere hung in the dark of space, growing larger as they sped towards it, taking up more and more of their field of vision. Indistinct shapes zoomed dizzyingly into neighborhoods, and that into a simple driveway. Rick hopped lightly out of his seat as soon as they'd landed, talking while Doc followed after him. "Ground rules: Don't touch anything in my lab, don't bother talking to Jerry, and remember, you're _not actually_ a Rick."

 **Hello! The writer here. Just here for some notes. First off: I'm gonna TRY and keep this updated with a chapter every Monday. So far I'm on track to keep it up, writing around a page a day which gives me a _little_ more than what I need to get there by the end of the week. Second: It really IS weird that there's so few other crossover fanworks of this thing, especially since I _found out_ about R &M from the BTTF fandom! Third, hey! If you're here this far thanks for stopping by! I'm really having fun with writing again and really do appreciate it.**

 **It's kind of interesting how while Doc and Rick are respectively the ones with the more domineering personalities in their own canons, Rick seems to be the one who's taking the most over here. Probably because right now, we're in his home court. We should have some more people showing up soon, though, so they might start picking up on asking important questions, and the two science nerds can _both_ be in their intensely obfuscating element.**


End file.
